I couldn't find any dedicated discussions for highway tire pressures. Apologies if I missed one. My question is, what tire pressure should you run for highway usage. If your front and rear weights are close to the same, should you run the same pressure in all four tires? My new RB E-350 V10 Quigley supposedly weighs 3743 in the front and 2835 in the rear. I will be doing a fairly mild conversion with a PH top, insulation and interior paneling, a few cabinets, and lots of stuff.

We will have 4 bikes, 10 gallons of water, 100 lbs. of camping stuff, 100 lbs. of climbing stuff, etc. Bottom line, I expect the front to weigh about 4100 and the rear to be 3700. The factory (Ford) recommends 60 psi in the front and 80 psi in the rear. Seems to me that I should be able to run 60 psi all around. Any thoughts will be appreciated. Does anyone know of a source to determine what pressure to use for different loads?

Much of this will depend on the tires themselves and what the MAX COLD tire pressure is.

As long as you are below the weight limit for the tires, you should be fine using any tire pressure up to the Max Cold pressure.

You can adjust down for ride comfort depending on what percentage of the carrying capacity of the tire you are at. The percentage of the load capacity is important in determining the pressure to keep the tire sidewall flex down and thus the temp and aging of the tire.

Example: Our Cooper tires are load range E with a load capacity of 3860lbs per tire. They have a max cold pressure of 65 and on the highway we run them at max for the best fuel efficiency. We do monitor both pressure and temp to make sure nothing goes astray.

But remember that stickers usually stay in place and tires will be changed.

Often the door jam stickers and the pressures there are for ride comfort.

Our Prius as a sticker that says 33 to 35 psi is the appropriate pressure. If we used that pressure our tires would have worn out in less than 20k miles. Instead we have been running the tires at 42 front 40 rear (due to the weight distribution of the vehicle) on tires with a max pressure of 44psi. We have 42k miles on the tires now.

Check the door jam sticker, but make sure you check the max pressure on the tires too because that is the real factor.

The Ford sticker on your van for the 60 psi front and 80 psi rear is for the stock tires that came with the van. These are 245/75/R16, at least for 2007 E350's. Greg is correct that new tires, ratings & sizing will probably result in new tire pressures.

The Ford sticker on your van for the 60 psi front and 80 psi rear is for the stock tires that came with the van. These are 245/75/R16, at least for 2007 E350's. Greg is correct that new tires, ratings & sizing will probably result in new tire pressures.

I'm almost positive that mine's an SMB sticker, not a Ford sticker, and is based upon the tires that were installed by SMB (I have since gone with the same size tires, but E load rated). I can't veryify until I get back home from Rhode Island though.

Herb

__________________SMB-less as of 02/04/2012. Our savings account is richer, but our adventures are poorer.

Thanks for all the replies. I have another question. My 2008 E350 has a factory tire pressure monitoring system that was working OK with the stock wheels adjusted to the factory pressures. Now that I have the new wheels and tires installed and set at 60 psi all around, the TPMS show the warning light on the dash. I did the reset using the Ford provided tool and sequence, but the warning light remains. I talked to my Ford dealer and they said that there wasn't any way to reset the computer for the TPMS to accept the new pressure settings on my tires. Has anyone else encountered this.

Also, my speedo is now off about 4 mph(slow) at 70 mph with the taller 265/70R17 tires. The Ford dealer charged me $85 dollars to try to change the computer, but either the tech didn't know what he was doing or not, but it may have changed it one mph. Thoughts?

Finally, I purchased a spare wheel and tire to match the other 4 on the ground. These are BFG ATKO 265/70R17 with American Racing Baja 672 wheels and the spare fits perfectly under the rear of the van. I know there has been some discussion about what would fit under there. I was going to get an Aluminess swing away carrier, but since this tire fits so well under there, I may just leave it for now. Less likely to be stolen underneath.

When you changed wheels, did they transfer the bands and transmitters to the new wheels?

We have larger wheels and the bands could not fit. Thus the factory system will light until the light burns out, and thus we have the Hella TPMS. I like the idea of the Hella system because I can actually see the pressure and temp for each tire rather than just be warned when a problem has already occured.

If your tires are a different size your speedo should be recalibrated. SMB did this for us. I have seen too many problems with dealers in my life. If the dealer said they did it, take it back and have them fix it... for FREE.

....and again, on the pressure, regardless of any sticker in any location, check the Max Cold Pressure and load rating printed on the tire and adjust your pressure accordingly.

Yes, Discount Tire transferred the bands, etc. and the system seemed to work for a few days. Now that I currently have the tire pressure set at 60 psi all around, the Ford dealer said the easiest solution was a piece of tape over the light.

The service writer is going to talk to someone to see if they can recal the speedo. Since I already paid them for it, I'll probably give them another shot at it.

How much are the Hella systems? I suppose I would have to go back to my tire dealer and have them install the bands, etc. Sounds like a nice idea and I am a gadget person. I will look it up on Google and see if I can get a price.